New Server

What a Mission

Behind the scenes, we are constantly on the look out for a better solution

The old server catered for the fastest way of dealing with PHP at that point in time.What’s PHP you may think as I know some of your eyes may glaze over when these acronyms are used?

You may have noticed that you can hover over certain words to get a small tip on what the word means.Fastpage was our own CMS system developed years ago when the only way you could get a CMS system was by paying huge money.We had ceased supporting Fastpage way back in 2012.No matter how hard we tried the message about Fastpage didn’t get through to a lot of people using newsletters and directly emailing people.Better CMS products like WordPress now dominate the market.

We found out that only a small percentage of people read newsletters

We had a dilemma as the message was not getting through.The operating system we used on the old server called Centos5 could not be upgraded.The expiry date was looming for the cessation of Centos5 along with an obsolete PHP version.

Cutting edge technology means a risk so we decided to go with a product called ‘CloudLinux’ supported by ‘CPANEL’

Bottom line – we had to shift servers.The server shift happened over Christmas 2016 when good folk are supposed to be on holiday.This was no easy task as the method of dealing with PHP reliant sites changed.This meant each site was shifted individually with ownership issues and permissions plus MYSQL incompatibilities had to be dealt with quickly on a one to one basis

Emails

Although a newsletter was sent out explaining what to do we soon found that support calls of what to do with emails not working began to slow the changeover.

“I haven’t time to read newsletters” – one client told me

One by one issues were dealt with including DNS issues which I know sounds boring until the shi.. hits the fan.

Every issue was resolved which took its personal toll on a lot of us behind the scenes.

Change is never nice but it is necessary for the IT industry

Challenge of IT Technology

We love the challenge of the IT industry to provide a reliable solution.Initially, there were a few challenges all resolved reasonably quickly.Today the goal of minimal support issues has been achieved.